Regression
by eitHer9335
Summary: Chloe's reaction to Lucifer's true face is the stuff of the Devil's nightmares. It's enough to drive him back to Hell, but under the strangest of circumstances, she might get a chance to apologize. Fairly long one-shot, set after the season 3 finale.


**Author's Note: **Most of this was written before I watched Season 4, so no spoilers, but it did accidentally end up being sort of relevant to the new season... This is also posted on AO3. Anyway, let me know what you think!

* * *

"It's up to you to make the right choice," Chloe finished. She could see the hesitation in the eyes of the man she had come here to catch, and she knew he was seconds away from putting down his gun and surrendering himself.

Or at the very least, she hoped he was. Because that gun was pointed straight at her, and if he made a different choice she was screwed.

His hand shook, and he looked her in the eye as he finally spoke. "I… don't think it's up to you to decide which choice is right."

And he fired.

Disbelieving, she pressed a hand to her chest, feeling blood run through her fingers, looking up at the man in shock. He looked back at her for just a moment, then fled. Her vision blurred and she didn't notice if he made it out of the warehouse. As she crumpled, her knees hit the cement floor with a dull spike of pain. For a moment, she fought gravity, but it was stronger than she was, and she slid to the ground, warm blood spilling over her chest and onto the floor.

Trixie would have Dan, she reassured herself, who loved her as much as Chloe did. Although it ached that she would never see her little monkey again, she had no regrets. Coming here was her only chance to stop the killer from striking again, and if this was the cost for saving lives, it was one she had always been prepared to pay.

But lying on the floor of the warehouse in a spreading pool of her own blood, she realized why this was different from any other time she had been shot. The rest of the department wouldn't get here for a while longer, and with the shooter gone, she was completely alone.

She laughed to herself, choking slightly as blood bubbled between her teeth. If she had told herself that she had no regrets, she had been lying. It was no one's fault but her own that she was alone.

It was no one's fault but her own that Lucifer was gone.

**Three Months Ago**

Lucifer may have spent eight years away from Hell, but he still was connected to it, and he could tell when Cain's soul was dragged down by the weight of his own guilt. Pleasure licked at the inside of his stomach, that he had made this happen, he had given Cain his just reward.

"Lucifer?"

Guilt snuffed out the pleasure in an instant. Of course, Lucifer thought Cain deserved to die, and if anything, got off too easy. But the Detective was a different story. Her strict morality was something Lucifer had come to love about her, but she always believed the best in him, and murder was a line she had never before had to forgive him for crossing. Maybe it would be too far.

"Lucifer," she called again, and slowly, he stood up and turned to her. He sighed at the sight of her, relieved beyond words that she was alive and uninjured. But she didn't share his relief.

Shock was plain on her face, but she wasn't looking at Pierce's body, she was looking at Lucifer. He frowned, confused, not understanding, desperately scanning her face to understand. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes wide, and reflected in that beautiful blue…

"It's all true," she gasped.

She took a stutter step backwards, and for an instant, the impulse to rush to her side and support her surged through Lucifer, but he held himself back. "Detective?" he asked, the cold weight he had come to recognize as dread beginning to build in his gut.

Her voice was small and terrified as she repeated, "It's all true."

The look in her eyes cut him to the bone, and he turned and stepped aside, away from her gaze, to reach up and tentatively touch his face. Just as he'd feared they would, his fingers encountered the rough, burned skin of his devil face. He couldn't see the unnatural red color of his skin, the deep scars that covered his face, or the inhuman red eyes, but he knew they were there.

And Chloe had seen them.

After months of missing it, his devil face was back, and he only wished it was gone. It took only a moment to hide it again beneath his human face, but he knew it would make no difference.

He had revealed his face to humans many times, and always gotten the same terrified reaction, but in the million and one times he imagined her seeing his true face, she had always been different. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different.

The disappointment settled low in his stomach as it sunk in that she wasn't.

After a long moment, he turned back to her, presenting his human face. He opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say, and what ended up coming out was quiet and desperate. "I meant to show you ages ago," he pleaded.

"The Devil," she managed. In the time since he had turned away tears had gathered in her eyes, unshed but glimmering in the light from the broken windows. "The actual devil."

He could only gaze at her in unexpressed sorrow. "I am," he replied, softly. "Always have been."

She took a step backwards, up onto the first stair. It felt like a punch in the gut but Lucifer stayed still and quiet as she began to breath faster, eyes flickering down and sideways and everywhere, mind working furiously. "And I trusted you," she breathed. "With my life, with my heart, with my _child_…" She took another step backwards, then another, boots soft on the steps but also immeasurably loud in the stillness of the room. "How could I be so stupid?" she continued. "You, you…"

Her eyes flashed up to meet his for the briefest moment, and the depth of the anger he saw there would have hurt if he was capable of hurting more than he was already. Then she looked away and addressed her next comment to the blood-streaked staircase. "You tricked me into loving you."

And if he thought he couldn't hurt any more he was wrong.

The word _love_ bounced around his head as the sorrow in him slowly transmuted into anger. His chest felt tight, his stomach roiled, and his head rang like a gong, but his voice was somehow soft and calm as he murmured, "What I hate more than anything is a liar. A charlatan. Someone who doesn't believe in what they say."

Chloe blinked, eyes flitting up from the floor once again. "What?" she breathed. Lucifer advanced on her, only a few steps, but the terror reignited in her eyes and she nearly tripped in her haste to get away from him.

"I _never_ lied to you," he hissed, low and soft, the sorrow in him slowly transmuting to anger. "It was your choice not to believe me. And you are the one who said –" his voice broke as the sadness surged again within him, but he buried it under the rising tide of white-hot rage and forced himself onwards. "You are the one who said I would never be a devil to you."

He grunted in pain as he shoved his wings into existence, but he was too angry to be more than inconvenienced. His last words to the Detective were an ultimatum.

"You lied," he accused her, oh-so-quietly.

And then he spread his wings and flew, across the room and up the stairs. As he passed over her she stumbled backwards, falling on the stairs, looking up at him in shock and fear and anger, but he didn't care. He flew out the shattered window and towards the freedom of L.A.'s skyline. His wings ached, and his heart ached worse, and the too familiar city didn't help.

Maybe it was time for a change of scenery.

**Present**

The crowd of demons rippled. They always hung around his throne, drawn by the power, and now they shifted, moving out of the way of someone who was very determinedly shoving past them. Lucifer's keen eyes caught on a distinctively zombified face, and he smiled to himself. "Let her through!" he called, waving a languid hand, and the crowd shuffled aside to let Maze through. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, one she made it to the foot of the dais.

"I don't have time for your games," she snapped, twisting a whip between her hands, tense. "Come with me."

"Ooh, demanding, isn't she?" he commented to nobody in particular, but in a second she was by his throne, gripping his wrist and unrelentingly tugging him up.

"Come _on_," she hissed. "This is important."

Amused, he stood and allowed himself to be dragged down the short set of stairs and across the hall. The demons leapt to get out his way, bowing to him and cringing out of Maze's way, out of the way of the demon who dared order around the ruler of Hell. "What exactly are you so worked up about?" Lucifer insisted, exasperated, but she only shook her head and forged on.

As soon as they were out of the palace and on one of Hell's many twisting paths, Maze let go of him and set off at a brisk pace past door after door after door. Lucifer lengthened his stride to keep up, but she began to pull away from him, and he had had enough. "Mazikeen," he snapped, calling to him the power of Hell, and she was forced to stop abruptly. "What is going on?"

"A new soul," she told him, disgruntled. "But it's better you see than be told."

He frowned at her, unconvinced, but she shook her head at him impatiently.

"Now is not the time to play with your power," she demanded. "We need to be quick, so I need you to trust me."

He searched her dark eyes for a moment, then shrugged and released her. "If you insist."

"About time," she grumbled, heading off again, and Lucifer followed willingly down the rocky path. Doors flashed by, and they took a few turns before Maze slowed down again.

"Lucifer," she began, stepping aside to allow him to fall into step beside him. "I thought that you'd want to know about this."

He raised an eyebrow and pointedly scanned the many identical doors that pockmarked the path they were taking. "About what?" he prodded.

Maze, her bravado suddenly, strangely gone, made a reluctant face and pointed out a particular door. "She only just got here," she added, and Lucifer turned back from the door to scrutinize the demon's face.

"Who did?"

And then he heard it. It was muffled by the door and quiet to begin with, but Lucifer did not hear wrong, and it froze him in his tracks.

"Detective?"

Maze said something behind him, but her voice sounded muffled and distant. His whole world was filled with the doorknob, and he reached for it, turned it, and opened the door in a haze.

Because there was only one person who might have his own voice in their Hell Loop.

The room rippled and reformed around Chloe, and she swallowed back a sob of desperation. "Not again," she whispered, but it did no good, she was back at the foot of the stairs. Her head ached and her eyes stung from crying, but she couldn't stop, couldn't calm down, not when this kept happening again and again and again. She couldn't tell how long it had actually been, but it felt like an eternity.

And then there he was again. Her partner, in the height and the build and the suit and the voice, as he asked, "Detective?" But in the face, in the blood-red skin and deep scars and monstrous eyes, he was someone completely foreign. He was the Devil.

But the relieved smile he wore was painfully familiar, and even though they burned with hellfire, his eyes were the same ones she too often had lost herself in. The sight of him twisted something deep inside of her, and she leaned forward, straining, ordering her feet to move, but knowing by now that they wouldn't. She remained in place as the smile slid off of Lucifer's face, replaced by shock and hurt.

"No," she managed, desperate, tears renewed, but she couldn't stop herself as she took a step backwards, then another. After a moment, he followed, eyes pleading, always a few steps away, never approaching, waiting for Chloe to stop running. But she couldn't, couldn't stop her feet from taking her up another step, and another, until she was at the top of the stairs, looking down at him a few feet below.

He still wore his Devil face, but only now, too late, could she see through it, to the man below. She could see the moment his desperation turned to resolve. "Fine," he told her, "If that's what you want."

"No," she begged again, "I never wanted this, I didn't mean to…" He turned away and headed down the steps, deaf to her words. "Lucifer, please, don't go!" she sobbed, and as if in response, her body was freed from whatever force had held it previously. Her legs buckled under her but she forced them to be steady as she sprinted forwards, stumbling down the steps and throwing herself across the room, towards Lucifer, towards her partner, and she truly believed she would make it in time…

And then he disappeared. Her momentum carried her through the empty space he had occupied a moment before, and she crumbled to her knees in the middle of the bloody room, alone. "Please don't go," she repeated, softly, drawing one arm in to her stomach and wiping tears with the other. "I'm so sorry."

She hadn't been sorry, at first: she had been too angry for words. That anger at what she perceived to be his deceit sustained her through three weeks of police inquiries into the events of Pierce's death, through three weeks of minimal food and barely any sleep, through three weeks of questioning everything she knew. Lucifer had disappeared, she knew, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Everything seemed to be in blurred watercolor around her, and there was no one she could confide in, no one she could trust, no one she remembered she loved.

Until there was.

Afterwards, Dan recounted the story of how Trixie had all but forced him to drive her to Linda's office, where she had pestered the therapist with seemingly endless questions about Lucifer's whereabouts, and a single, shy, sorrowful inquiry about Maze. She wasn't sure how Linda put all the pieces together from there, but somehow she did, and Chloe's world came into focus for what seemed like the first time in weeks when Linda sat down in front of her and stated blandly, "So now you know it's all true."

**Two Months Ago**

Chloe blinked, noticing with some interest that she was on her sofa, not remembering how she got there. Her voice was hoarse as she replied, "Yes." She had grown quite used to blocking her mind from returning to the events in that feather-strewn room, and she did it now again with ease. "I do."

"And?" Linda asked probingly.

Chloe made a helpless gesture, not bothering to reply, instead directing her gaze out a window.

"Well," Linda said, not put off in the slightest, "When I found out, I was terrified. It meant a lot of the things I thought about the world were wrong. I was also terrified of Lucifer. I thought he was delusional, turns out he really did run Hell for millennia, and really was supernaturally strong and old and powerful."

"God is real," Chloe commented vaguely.

"Yes," Linda replied slowly. "And so is Satan. Everything Lucifer said was true."

And the anger was back.

It electrified every molecule in her body and she snapped her eyes back to Linda, suddenly completely attentive. "He tricked me," she countered tightly, firmly. "He tricked us all."

Linda blinked, surprised at the sudden change in Chloe's demeanor, but she hid it well. "Why do you say that?"

"He pretended to be good, to be innocent, to be kind, when really he was the Devil. The literal and actual Devil," she rambled.

"What did he say that misled you?" Linda persisted.

"He led me on in believing that he was some eccentric," she accused, "And I let him get away with _so much_…" Her voice trembled and she stopped.

"What did you let him get away with?" was the next calm question, and Chloe noticed her knee jostling anxiously, a habit she thought she had gotten rid of. Linda's composure was only freaking her out, and her voice reflected that as she answered.

"I left him alone with Trixie, for one," she began. "I worried he might be a bad influence but if I knew who he really was I would have kept Trixie miles away. I let him in my home, I let him on my job, I…" Chloe snapped her mind away from the memories, but it floated through, the tremble in her voice as she told him, _You tricked me into loving you_. She had never told him she felt that way before, and now in retrospect, the thought made her shiver inside, the thought that she could have been in love with the Devil.

But Linda was shaking her head, insistent. "Chloe, you know you can be honest with me. You let him… what?"

She let out a slow breath. "I let him into my heart," she admitted, and though said heart jackhammered, her breath came easier with the admission. "I let myself love him… I loved the Devil, Linda. That's horrible."

But Linda only spread her hands with a wry smile. "I slept with the Devil. On multiple occasions." Chloe winced at the reminder, but Linda was not bothered. "And so has half of L.A. Why is it horrible that you love Lucifer?"

"Loved," Chloe added quickly.

Linda nodded slowly. "Okay. Loved. What's wrong with that?"

"Well," Chloe began, then stopped. There was so much to say and she didn't know how to say any of it, so she settled for a belated, "First of all, loved is very different than slept with." She saw Linda's patient nod, and tried to marshal her thoughts. It was like herding cats, and all she came up with in the end was, "He's the _Devil_."

"Yes," Linda replied. "I get how shocking and scary that fact is. But does it mean anything in of itself?"

"Of course! It means –"

"Sorry," Linda interrupted. Chloe stopped, mouth half open, and Linda bit her lip. "Sorry, interrupting people, therapist no-no _numero uno_, but that's not what I meant to say." Chloe closed her mouth, amused despite herself, and gestured for Linda to go on. "I meant, does it actually change anything about Lucifer?" She waited a moment while Chloe scrutinized the pattern on a pillow, once again eluded by her own thoughts, then she added, "Has he ever lied to you?"

She had asked herself that question, all hours of the day and night, over the past three weeks. She had dredged up everything Lucifer had ever told her, every offhand comment, innuendo, or solemn confession. She hadn't yet found anything untrue, but something in her insisted that she had just forgotten something, missed something.

"Has he?" Linda pressed quietly.

Chloe focused her attentions on her leg, relaxing it and slowly stilling its frantic bouncing. It didn't take quite long enough, so she studied the grain of wood in the table, the curtains that swayed in the faint breeze, and the cat on the calendar on the wall.

"Chloe?" Linda prompted, but Chloe wasn't paying attention at all anymore, slowly standing and striding over to the calendar. She scanned the page, with increasing desperation as she realized she had no idea what day it was. She checked her pockets, then widened her search to the entire room when they were empty.

"My phone," she said abruptly, to the nonplussed therapist. "Where is my phone?"

All she received in reply was an uncomprehending blink, and she went back to scouring the counter, knocking over a cup and slamming drawers. She found it soon enough, in a drawer it never should have been in, and turned it on. The screen stayed dark, and in a sudden moment of violence she sent the device careening across the room, where it bounced off the edge of the table and slid to a halt on the rug.

"Chloe!" Linda said again, insistently, and she realized with a start that sometime during her search the therapist had come to stand next to her, one hand on her arm, worried. "What's going on?"

"Out of battery," she hissed, still tense. She turned on Linda then in realization. "You know! What day is it?"

"Saturday?" Linda answered, confused.

Chloe's adrenaline left her in an instant. "Oh God," she murmured, feeling her knees wobble as she slid to the cold tile floor of the kitchen.

Linda had knelt down beside her in an instant, eyes intent and anxious. "Chloe, please tell me what's wrong," she insisted, and Chloe rested her head against her knees in shame.

"Trixie," was her eventual, quiet admission. "I didn't know if I was supposed to be picking her up."

There was a long moment of silence, and Chloe hid behind her knees, closing her eyes, even as Linda settled into place beside her, leaning her back against the counter. Linda finally broke the silence with a careful statement. "Trixie has been living with Dan since the incident with Pierce."

It took a moment to settle in, the thought bitter in her mouth, that things had gotten so bad, that she had fallen so far. It went against everything she stood for, everything she had ever tried to be, and it meant that something had to change. So, she sighed slowly, and pronounced her own sentence. "No."

A pause. "What?" was Linda's reply, and Chloe dragged her head up from her knees, but couldn't bring herself to face her friend as she said it.

"He never lied to me."

In the cool shadow under the counter, for the first time, Chloe didn't even try to stop herself when she drifted back to that memory. Lucifer's voice echoed her own as she said, "I lied. He never did." She scrubbed at her eyes wearily. "I told him that… he would never be a devil to me. That I knew who he was and nothing could change that. I made a liar out of myself, and that's why he left."

"Ohhh," sighed Linda, sympathetic in even that smallest of gestures. "Chloe, you can't blame yourself."

"Why not?!" she snapped back, a trace of her old anger resurfacing. "I led him on, then drove him away, it wasn't his fault but now I can't – even – fucking – forgive him." She hissed the words out like it hurt her tongue to create them. Tears swam in her eyes, but she didn't let them fall, blinking and grimacing until they receded. She didn't deserve to be felt sorry for, even by herself.

"Lucifer may be the Devil," Linda began, and her hand crept up to rest reassuringly on Chloe's shoulder, "But you are only human."

And the tears were back.

"You were shocked, and afraid, when you saw who Lucifer was. I get it. You couldn't control how you reacted in the moment, because no one ever can. You are human, and screwing up, even something big like that, is okay. It happens and its not your fault."

**Two Years Ago, in Hell**

It had been almost a year, already, since Lucifer had left Earth. Time in Hell moved differently, he knew, and he continually resisted the temptation to check how much time had passed on Earth. He refused to, though, because that would be admitting he still cared what happened up there. And he would never do that.

Getting L.A. out of his system had not been as hard as he thought it would. Not when every time he thought about his time up there, any recollection of good was swallowed up by blinding anger. It was the sort of anger that drove humans to foolish acts, the sort they imagined the Devil burned with constantly, and he acknowledged the irony even as he shoved it down, put it aside.

After all, he was the Devil. It was for him to laugh at human emotions, not experience them.

At least, it would be soon enough. Just as soon as he forgot about his vacation completely and stopped experiencing the strange variety of discomforts humans called emotion. As soon as he stopped walking around the empty space in his rooms that had once housed a piano and started walking straight through. As soon as he found it within himself to enjoy torturing again, without hearing _her_ asking him to stop.

A knock sounded on the door to his room, sharp and bold. Lucifer looked up, intrigued. Demons would never disturb him willingly, and when they did they were hesitant and terrified. He stood and headed over, subconsciously skirting the open space, and then opened the door.

"Brother!" Amenadiel greeted, all affection and grace, dressed in an angel's robe, with wings smugly out and folded against his back.

Lucifer shut the door.

"Aw, come on!" the reinstated angel called, frustrated, from the other side. "After everything we went through together up on Earth, you're going back to scorning me?" When no response was forthcoming, he shoved on the door, or so Lucifer assumed from the rattling of the doorknobs. The door itself didn't budge an inch, held fast by Lucifer's back, pressed against it as he held it shut. "Luci!" Amenadiel shouted again. "What are you, five?"

Lucifer couldn't stop the smirk that crossed his face. So predictable. He quickly slipped away from the door, heading over to the counter in the room and pouring himself a drink. He struck a pose, leaning casually against the wall, put on a straight face, and waited.

Sure enough, within five seconds his door flew inwards under the force of Amenadiel's charge. It tore free of its hinges, slid across the floor with a squeal, and the angel stormed in. "Lucifer!" he demanded.

The Devil just raised an eyebrow. "Even demons know how to use doorknobs, brother," he taunted.

"Yeah, yeah, hilarious," was the wry reply. Amenadiel folded his wings out of existence and crossed his arms. "I was surprised you returned to Hell," he commented.

Lucifer just shrugged and took a sip of his drink. "I always do, eventually," he replied. "And good thing I did. I don't know if you heard, the infernal masses were about to redecorate the throne room. I came just in time to save their color scheme."

Amenadiel blinked. "Demons redecorate?"

"Oh, yes!" Lucifer grinned. "They –"

"No," the angel interrupted. "I shouldn't have asked. I don't need to know." He paused, frowning, studying Lucifer. Then he added, "Charlotte's in the Silver City."

Lucifer carefully kept his expression blank as he felt that comment settle, heavy and toxic, somewhere in his stomach. He replied steadily, "I know. She isn't down here, and there's nowhere else to go."

"Okay," Amenadiel hedged. "That's okay?"

Lucifer raised an eyebrow at him. "Has being our father's loyal son again really eroded your brain so quickly?"

Amenadiel straightened up again, all sympathy gone. "I know you hate the rest of our family, brother, but I missed them," he accused. "I'm glad to be back." Lucifer downed the rest of his drink and turned away from his brother to refill it. That seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back, because Amenadiel's voice was cold when he reported, "I'm here bearing a message. Not that you're likely to care."

"Depends on who it's from," Lucifer drawled as he spun back with a new drink. "And you know, the mailmen usually just leave stuff at the gates, right?"

Amenadiel's mouth was set in hard lines, and it didn't change as he held up a folded piece of paper. "From Linda," he told his brother. "She sent it in a prayer."

Lucifer froze for just a moment. The suffocating heat of Hell crept under his shirt and breathing didn't seem to be doing anything for him, but he forced his limbs to move. He plucked the paper from Amenadiel's grip and sauntered past him to the door. "Maybe leave a little less destructively than you entered?" he suggested mockingly.

All he received by way of reply was a cold glance as Amenadiel unfolded his wings and took off, sending papers flying in his wind.

As soon he was gone, the upset, nauseous feeling in his stomach swam up, and his legs wobbled as he forced himself out of the main room and into his bedroom, which still had a door. He closed it and collapsed on his bed, putting his head in his hands and squeezing his eyes shut. "I am Lucifer _bloody _Morningstar," he grit out, "And I am stronger than this."

A moment more of indulging himself, then he sat up straight and donned a mocking smile, even with no one here to see him. He kept his movement light and casual as he opened up the piece of paper that had somehow become crumpled in his hand, and read it.

It was so Linda, pleasant but heartfelt, reminding him that he had friends on Earth and asking him to return. He held himself stiff, not allowing the burning in his eyes to turn into actual tears. For a moment, he could put a name to the feeling in his stomach: regret, that he had fled and left them all behind.

And then his eyes fell on the last line. "Chloe's really sorry, too," it read, and in a moment the unshed tears in his eyes evaporated with the scorching heat of his anger. He didn't even notice the spark, but the gentle tickling of the fire, consuming the paper he held, got his attention. He scoffed out a laugh and tossed the ashes onto the floor.

**Present**

There was only one person who would have cause for his voice to be in their hell loop. "Chloe's really sorry," Linda's note had read. He had dismissed it as false, but apparently her guilt had been enough to send her to Hell.

The anger rose in him again, but it was hollow and didn't warm him like it usually did. He wrapped his fingers firmly around the knob, firmly enough to stop them trembling, and turned it. He pushed the door open and entered with slow, hesitant steps.

The room he found himself in was excruciatingly familiar, round and columned, lined with various art pieces, with shattered glass and bloody feathers scattered everywhere. In the center of it lay Cain's body, unmoving, the hilt of a dagger protruding from his chest. Chloe over him, eyes swollen with crying, looking absolutely devastated.

The room rippled and reformed, everything moving except for the Detective, who wound up back at the foot of the stairs, and Lucifer himself, who stood in the shadows on the opposite side of the room, unobserved. But there was someone else now, too: a figure in a dark suit, crouched over Cain. As Lucifer watched, he stood, turned around, exposing the violent red of his skin. "Detective?" he asked, in the same voice Lucifer had heard from outside the chamber.

"Please," Chloe breathed, eyes fixed on the Hell Loop's Lucifer. Her fingers trembled as she dragged them through her hair, distraught, and she pleaded, "Not again!"

It felt like a knife in the ribs to Lucifer, who clenched his fists, feeling the doorknob that was still in his hand crumple, but stayed silent. Chloe took a step back, not-Lucifer followed, and she took another, then a third, up the steps, a doomed dance that they had already done who knows how many times. From behind, he could see the change in the posture of the character in the hell-loop: shoulders slumping, head sagging. "Fine," it said, "If you want me gone…"

Chloe staggered suddenly, then ran forwards, tripping down steps. "Lucifer," she gasped as she threw herself across the room, and through the empty space where it had been a moment before, "I'm so sorry." But she was again alone in her hell, and she hugged herself as she stood in the center of the room, a tear slipping down her cheek.

Without any further thought, Lucifer stepped forward, away from the door, towards the detective.

She heard him, and looked up at him quickly, eyes guarded and fearful, but as he stood there, still and silent, confusion entered her face. She reached up to wipe her eyes, struggling to calm down, and with her hair a mess, her eyes red, and fear and sorrow in every inch of her bearing, Lucifer saw she looked as beautiful as ever.

"Chloe," he murmured. "It's me."

Her breath stuttered and her eyes welled with tears, still not believing. But almost against her will she stepped forward, reaching out, one hand with delicate fingers approaching him, hesitating a breath away, then brushing his cheek.

A sudden conviction took hold of him, and he reached up, desperate, to place his hand on top of hers. "I'm not going to disappear," he promised, passionate, free of doubt.

She rushed into his embrace, choking on her tears, holding him tight enough to hurt if he wasn't the Devil. He pulled her close against him, savoring the moment, just a little longer, before he pulled back, just far enough to be able to see her face, though his arms didn't leave her shoulders.

"What happened?" he asked, urgently. "Why did you die?"

At first, she stared back at him blankly, and then she closed her eyes against the realization. "This is Hell."

"_Yes_," Lucifer replied, "And I – well, I owe you an explanation, some other time –" Her eyes snapped open in shock and relief – "But right now I need you to remember what happened."

Slowly, Chloe's fingers found a spot on her chest. "He shot me," she murmured. "The department wasn't there, not there yet, I was alone."

"I'm so sorry." He looked down at her, regret rising fast inside of him, but not fast enough to drown him in his newfound determination. "But maybe it's not too late." Ever so cautiously, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, and promised, "I'll see you soon. Either way." With a thought he spread his wings and flew, leaving her below, pushing them to carry him up _faster_, and just maybe they would be fast enough for him to make it in time.

**Eight Hours Later**

"Dude," Dan wondered, "Where did you even come from?"

Lucifer tore his eyes away from Chloe's still form to face the other Detective. "Too far away, it seems," he murmured. "I shouldn't have left."

Dan stared back for a moment, then slowly shook his head. "I would be more pissed that you left us all in the lurch, but at the moment I really can't."

Somehow, Lucifer mustered a smile. "So that's a yes to this new suit, hm? If it impresses _you_…"

"Shut up," Dan interrupted. "I could still get mad any moment. But…" he studied the floor. "Well, you saved Chloe, so I figure that gives you a bit of a grace period."

Lucifer took a moment to gaze at the resting Detective before he replied, "Grace? I wouldn't want it, it has too many religious connotations. Save it for the doctors, they're the ones who resuscitated her."

"And you're the one who pulled off some miracle to get her to the hospital before the rest of the department even got to the scene." He shook his head and laughed softly. "I don't even want to know how you did that."

The corner of Lucifer's mouth twitched. "You probably don't," he agreed.

Dan cast him a sideways look. "Anyway, I've got to go talk to Trixie, make sure she's not too freaked out by this whole thing… you'll stay?"

Lucifer nodded firmly. "Oh, yes. I'm not leaving again."

"I only meant for the next couple hours, but…" Dan shrugged as he made his way over to the door. "For what it's worth, I'm glad."

A moment later he was gone, and Lucifer stared at the door that had closed behind his back, wondering.

A hoarse voice from behind him startled him. "I'm glad too."

He whirled around in his seat. "Detective!" She smiled wanly up at him, her eyes open and clear and heartbreakingly blue. He sighed, and began to smile. "Chloe."


End file.
